


the witch's death

by heartofstanding



Category: 15th Century CE RPF
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Fertility Issues, Fire, Grief/Mourning, Mild Sexual Content, Misunderstandings, Murder, Past Character Death, Suicide Attempt, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI and the death of Eleanor Cobham.
Relationships: Henry VI/Marguerite d'Anjou | Henry VI/Margaret of Anjou
Comments: 10
Kudos: 9





	1. Margaret

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate summary:
> 
> Margaret of Anjou can have a little murder. As a treat.
> 
> Henry VI can have a little more repressed trauma. As the opposite of a treat.
> 
> (As a quick disclaimer: I don't think Margaret had Eleanor murdered and I don't think Eleanor was murdered. This plot bunny just wouldn't leave me alone.)

Margaret found Henry standing at the window, staring out. He couldn’t be looking at anything – she had once peered through the stained glass and found that it distorted and warped her vision until all she could see was twisted shapes and shadows beneath a haze of brilliant colour. The day was warm, too nice to spend it in some fit of melancholy, but she didn’t know how to pull Henry out of the mood he’d been in since the news came that morning from Beaumaris Castle.

‘Henry,’ she said because she had to say something. ‘Come and walk with me in the gardens. Clear your head.’

Henry’s back tensed. His hand rose and pressed against the glass, tracing a shape though Margaret couldn’t tell what it was meant to be.

‘The sun will be lovely on your back and we can see far into the distance,’ she said. ‘Come, it will be—'

‘As though nothing’s changed?’ he said.

His voice was harsh and she trembled despite herself. She had only heard him speak on the verge of anger once before and that was when Gloucester died. No one had especially wanted Gloucester dead but Margaret was only sorry that his timing was so inconsiderate that people claimed she and Suffolk had him murdered. Henry was sorry Gloucester died, though.

‘What _has_ changed?’ Margaret said. ‘She was a prisoner for ten years and now she is dead.’

‘But – but that’s it,’ Henry said. ‘ _Now_ she’s dead.’

‘Isn’t that better?’ Margaret said. ‘She is either with God or the Devil, not with us, and they will treat her as she deserves.’

She saw, in the reflection of the glass, Henry go white and his hands clench into fists. She wondered if he thought her words were too harsh. Well. She didn’t know this woman – she had been imprisoned four years before Margaret arrived in England – but she had witnessed Henry’s fear of her and Suffolk’s caution. Did they not declare her dead in parliament so she could make no claim on Gloucester’s estate?

Margaret had first been told about her in her father’s house. _A witch,_ Suffolk had said, _proud and evil, driven by ambition and glutting herself on power and riches. She tried to kill the king but we caught her._ Margaret only said, _why did you not kill her?_ Suffolk had sighed and said, _we wanted to but it was – untenable._

Well, Margaret had done what Suffolk could not. She could not fathom why he hadn’t, even once Gloucester was dead and could not make trouble.

‘She was kind to me,’ Henry said, pleading as if willing Margaret to understand. ‘I know it sounds bizarre but she was and sometimes I think – what if it was a mistake? What if she didn’t fall into evil at all?’

Margaret stared at the back of his head. ‘You are saying she was innocent?’

‘No,’ Henry said, too quickly. ‘No, she had to be guilty, _she had to be._ ’

Margaret told herself to leave it alone. Nothing could be changed and she didn’t want to discover that she’d been wrong or feel guilty over the witch’s death. But Henry didn’t sound convinced of his own words, his speech was too forceful as if he was trying to persuade himself he was speaking the truth.

‘Henry.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said and turned around to face her. ‘It doesn’t – doesn’t make sense. She was kind. _Kind._ I thought she was a friend – she never tried to sway me one way or the other, she just _listened._ But then – then they said she was consorting with witches and demons. That she used love potions and spells to steal Gloucester’s heart. That she wanted to be a queen and laid with the devil so he could get a child on her and put him on the throne. She said she _wanted_ a child which means, surely…’

He gazed at Margaret hopefully. Margaret said nothing. She wanted a child too. If she had one, after seven years without conceiving, would her enemies say the same about her? That she laid with the devil for the sake of her own ambition? Foolishness. Yet her enemies would find it an easy lie to spin and the fearful and ignorant would believe it.

‘She had no children?’

Henry shook his head. ‘I made her cry once,’ he said, ‘asking her when she was going to have a baby. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t – I didn’t understand, I was only a child. But she was so _sad_.’

Margaret wished she hadn’t asked.

‘Maybe – do you think it’s possible there was some – some confusion? A mistake was made and she wasn’t evil at all?’

 _No,_ Margaret wanted to say, _no, definitely not. She had a trial, they said she was guilty, you have been so afraid of her. Be glad she is dead._

‘Why ask me that?’ she said instead. ‘I wasn’t there. I never met her.’

Henry’s face fell. ‘I know.’

‘I don’t understand why you wish to question it now,’ she said. ‘She’s dead. Gloucester’s dead. It doesn’t matter anymore. She’s past pardoning and her guilt or innocence mean nothing to anyone but the Almighty.’

Henry bowed his head. ‘I know.’

She held her hand out to him. ‘Come and walk in the gardens.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I would rather not.’

*

They laid side-by-side in bed. Margaret felt her back stiff against the overly soft mattress. Henry was rolled on his side, facing away from her, and she wished he would say something or that she was suddenly eloquent in kind speech and could find the right words to comfort him so he would leave the witch dead in her grave.

‘Do you think,’ Henry said slowly, ‘that we should have her buried with Gloucester?’

She wished Suffolk was still alive so he could tell Henry that no, they should not and could not, in the same reasonable manner as he always had guided Henry onto the right paths. She tried to imagine what he would say to such a question.

‘What do you think they would say,’ she said, ‘if we granted burial in a royal vault to a convicted witch and traitor?’

He was silent for a long while and then said, ‘I suppose you’re right. Only – they loved each other so much.’

‘She poisoned him with love potions,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

‘Oh.’

‘Anyway, they already buried her,’ Margaret said.

Again, he was silent. Margaret felt him shift on the bed and pick up his paternoster beads, heard them rolling between his fingers and the soft sound of his mouth making prayers. He was probably praying for the witch, she thought, and wondered why he did when he had been so afraid of her. Then even those sounds stopped and she thought he was asleep.

‘Do you think it’s painful, dying?’ he said.

‘She died in her sleep, didn’t she?’

‘Oh yes,’ Henry said. ‘That’s what they said.’

Margaret wondered how it had been done. Her orders had not specified a method, only that it should be done without suspicion. Though she doubted anyone would have cared if they heard the witch screaming for miles – the English had such dreadful tales of how they killed their kings and dukes. Featherbeds, hot spits, starvation, knives, poison. Margaret wondered if the witch had woken and fought or thought, _finally,_ and threw herself into death’s arms as fast as her murderers would let her?

*

Margaret had never thought of her as a person or woman or a name. She thought of her as nothing but that word, _witch,_ and used to imagine her imprisoned in a tower, growing fat with bile and venomous with hate, spitting curses and calling down storms. Suffolk had assured her that measures had been taken, that the witch could not harm them or be freed, but Margaret hadn’t been convinced. Bitterness bred not peace but a desire for revenge.

Gloucester had died and Suffolk had said, _we can free her, I suppose, release her to the care of nuns_ and Henry had said, _but what if she tries again? what if she wants revenge?_ and Margaret had asked Suffolk, _are you mad?_

Then Suffolk had died and Cade had rebelled and York had made trouble, landing at the place where they imprisoned the witch. They’d feared York would free her – Margaret had imagined glass shattering and an old hag standing before her dressed in rags and filth, peering through her loosened hair to hurl curses and hatred at Margaret. York had left the witch in her prison but they couldn’t trust him. He might still free her.

Margaret had clutched her stomach, feeling her body cramp as she bled as she always bled, and thought, what if this was the witch, after all? What if the fault lay not in Margaret or Henry but in a sorceress’s curse? Suffolk had said the witch was harmless but he had been dead for two years and he hadn’t always told truth.

Margaret had known what to do. Henry was squeamish but she was not. She had said, once, _that witch should be burnt_ and Henry had said, _no, no, she can’t die like that._ Since he would not do it, she had.

*

She convinced Henry to come to the gardens with her the next day. It was not as lovely as it had been; there was a layer of clouds over the sky and the berries had burnt brown in the heat but he came and wandered through the ordered lanes as if he was a sick man seeing the sun for the first time. He stopped and stared at the fountain, his eyes growing wet.

She took his arm and led him away.

‘Put her from your mind,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t help to dwell on death or evil. She had a trial and was found guilty. She was punished. And now she is dead.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘She is in God’s hands now, to be judged and punished as he sees fit. But the past – the past is a beautiful thing to remember and grieve. I do not believe she was always evil and can only wish that what made her fall had been noticed so she could have been saved.’

‘Then we will pray for her,’ she said though she didn’t want to, ‘that her sins might be forgiven and the devil might not take her soul.’

Henry nodded and smiled thinly. ‘It is the only thing we can do.’

On the way to the chapel, he stopped and picked a dusky rose. The thorn scraped along his thumb but didn’t bleed him. He raised it to his nose and inhaled the scent and then let it fall. Margaret stopped and stared at it, lying on the path, and remembered the gardens of her Palace of Placentia when it had been Gloucester’s. How many roses had grown in it then? She had complimented Gloucester on his gardens and he had stared rather pathetically at her. _My wife,_ Gloucester had said, _likes roses._ Margaret had them ripped out and replaced with daisies and foxgloves.

Margaret took a step and ground the delicate petals under her foot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eleanor Cobham, once the Duchess of Gloucester, died on 7 July 1452 at Beaumaris Castle where, presumably, she was buried. Despite the infamy of her downfall, her death was so obscure that it's only been comparatively recently that the date and place have been discovered - previously, it was thought she had died on the Isle of Man, her most famous prison, at an unknown date. 
> 
> The cause of her death is not recorded and, accordingly, we can't rule out anything. But, as I said above, I don't think she was murdered. By 1452, she was a non-entity and any possibility of her causing difficulty for Henry VI and his court party was effectively ended in 1447 with Gloucester's death and the subsequent Act of Parliament declaring Eleanor legally dead. If the royal court, or individuals in it, wanted Eleanor to be killed, I think it's much more likely it would've occurred in 1447, in the immediate aftermath of Gloucester's death.
> 
> That said, I like to think Margaret's motivations here in wanting Eleanor dead are plausible: the desire to remove a potential threat. Margaret never met Eleanor, arriving in England four years after Eleanor's downfall, and any opinions she had of Eleanor were formed by others, most notably Henry VI, who seems to have somewhat frightened of Eleanor, and Suffolk, who had every reason to be hostile to Gloucester and Eleanor.
> 
> Ralph A. Griffiths has speculated that York, arriving at Beaumaris Castle when he returned from Ireland in 1450, may have considered freeing Eleanor as a way of associating himself with the memory of her husband, "Good Duke Humphrey". This didn't happen - there's no record of them meeting - but his arrival at the same place Eleanor was imprisoned might have raised concerns he would free her.


	2. Henry

That night, Henry dreamt of her. It wasn’t the usual dream where he found himself in her dungeon, watching her weep and pray. It wasn’t even the very embarrassing dream he’d once had of her naked in her bath. Instead, he found himself in a garden with the sky clear and blue, going on forever, and the grass moist with dew. The violets and irises were in full bloom and she was sitting on a bench, beautiful and young, her outstretched hands filled with roses and a woven crown of forget-me-nots upon her bright head.

He wasn’t afraid of her. He went eagerly to her and said her name. _Eleanor_. She smiled beautifully at him. He looked down and saw her hands and wrists were scratched and scabbed where the thorns had pricked her.

When he woke, he didn’t feel anything. He rolled onto his back, closed his eyes and slept again.

*

It was summer and the day was warm and perfect. He heard three masses in the morning and then held an audience in the hall. One esquire, the hem of his tunic stained with mud, came and knelt before him.

‘Your grace,’ he said, ‘I come from Beaumaris Castle. The prisoner there, one Eleanor Cobham, former Duchess of Gloucester, died on the seventh.’

The world tilted. Henry clutched at the arms of his chair, felt his robes grow heavy and his head sway. He blinked, heard nothing, blinked again. There was something unreal about the clerk, something unnatural about the way the light hit him. His face shimmered. Henry blinked again and felt Margaret’s hand on his shoulder, her fingers grounding him.

‘Dead?’ he said.

The clerk nodded. ‘In her sleep.’ His eyes moved around the room before settling on Margaret. ‘Sir William Beauchamp paid for her burial, your grace.’

 _Dead._ She could not be dead. It was impossible – she was supposed to remain alive, weeping in her dungeon and filling his dreams forever. She was supposed to have swallowed some potion that meant she could not die. Henry’s hands clenched, nails cutting into his palms.

‘Dead?’ he said again.

‘Yes, your grace,’ the clerk said.

Henry meant to ask him again because it could not be true but Margaret stepped forward, her skirts sweeping against his leg.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You may go.’

The clerk and Henry felt his mind trailing after him, wanting to ask, again, if it were true and if it were, how could it be true? How did one die in their sleep? How could a witch, even a caged witch, suffer a death so mundane and simple?

They brought more business to him and Henry tried to concentrate.

The viper is dead, he thought, her poison is gone from the world. A sorceress gone to God’s judgement and God’s punishment. Her immortal soul sent to the darkest pits of hell, to be tortured in the hellfire until she repented. He heard Margaret’s voice – though when he glanced up at her, he saw her mouth closed and silent – saying, _she should’ve been burnt._

He smelt the putrid stink of fire, of flesh cooking and burning. He saw his aunt lashed to a pole, her hair a fiery halo around her head, her skin shrivelling, blistering, turning black. He saw her mouth open in a hideous scream, the sound echoing, until she started to choke.

She shouldn’t die like that, he thought and then told himself firmly that she hadn’t. She had died in her sleep. But that could mean many things. A candle left burning unattended could become an inferno. The hangings of her bed – the hangings he had sent to her years and years ago when Gloucester was still alive – could have caught fire and burnt her. She mightn’t have even woken which would be a mercy. But he doubted it. The heat, the smoke, the smell of burning velvet and flesh. She would’ve woken, surely, and felt the full pain and terror at her death.

Vomit filled his mouth. He stood up and left.

*

He lost time.

He had loved her. He knew that. It might have been a potion she slipped to him, some enchantment she had worked for her own benefit. But he had loved her. His aunt. Beautiful, sweet-natured and never seeming to expect anything from him that he be himself without fear. She had never looked at him as if searching for someone else’s spirit in his face or listening for their voice speaking through his mouth, had never been disappointed or frustrated with him. He could not even remember her being angry and she never spoke a word about the people who called her – years before it was proven – foul things.

Only once had he upset her and that was when he was small, too small to know better. His mother had been pregnant with Jasper and he had thought it strange that Eleanor didn’t have a baby. So he’d asked her and watched as she’d gone white and teary-eyed, hiding her face and not answering.

Gloucester had looked that way too, when Henry had asked him what he’d done wrong but his mother had said, _some people want to have babies and can’t no matter how they try, it makes them very sad_ but she hadn’t known why Eleanor couldn’t have a baby. The cardinal had said, _God’s will_ and though Henry had known God couldn’t be wrong or cruel and he hated himself for the blasphemy, he had thought it cruel that Eleanor was denied children.

He blinked. All he could see was red. He lost time.

They had said she had been _disruptive_ after Gloucester’s death. They had never told him how and he had shivered in fear, imagining her trying to curse him and Margaret. But he had overheard Suffolk talking once, saying she had to be watched in fear she would lay violent hands upon her own life.

Was that what killed her, then? No peaceful death, no rest, but violence inflicted on her own self? He thought of his dream, where she wept in her dungeon before driving a knife into her breast and her blood spread slowly across the floor. The clerk said she died in her sleep but perhaps there was confusion, perhaps she laid herself down in her bed at night and then took up a knife.

But that was a sin. Self-murder. But she had fallen into grievous sin before, perhaps she thought herself damned—

He shifted, saw the red replaced with green. He lost time.

She could have been ill. Something she had eaten, some foul air she had breathed. There would have been a doctor, surely, that her gaolers would have had summoned to tend her. But they wouldn’t have been the most skilled or learned doctors but whoever was at hand. Perhaps not even a doctor but a wise woman. Or worse, someone who had been so afraid of an accused witch that they refused to treat her and let her die untended.

(An accused witch? She _was_ a witch.)

Henry’s father had died of the bloody flux, perhaps Eleanor had died that way too. Cramping and clutching at her belly, in an exhausted, thin sleep. Or coughing, her lungs full of water as if she were drowning on dry land. God’s punishment, surely, so that she could begin her penance before she died.

But she shouldn’t have died like that. She had been kind to him. A quiet, quick death was what was merciful. No lengthy pain or bone-weary exhaustion but something painless.

He moved, saw blue. His face was pressed against sun-warmed glass and Margaret was speaking, trying to call him back to himself.

‘The sun will be lovely on your back and we can see far into the distance,’ she was saying. ‘Come, it will be—'

‘As though nothing’s changed?’

‘What has changed?’ She was a prisoner for ten years and now she is dead.’

‘But that’s it – _now_ she’s dead,’ Henry said.

He could see, through the glass, a sense of a movement. A bird flying into the sky, perhaps. Margaret didn’t know, she didn’t care. He wished she had met Eleanor, had known her – she would understand then the hold Eleanor had on him. She had been kind and beautiful and she had _listened._ She hadn’t always been evil – indeed, he had never thought her capable of such evil but she must have fallen into temptation, been overmastered by her pride.

‘Isn’t that better?’ Margaret said. ‘She is either with God or the Devil, not with us, and they will treat her as she deserves.’

Henry saw Eleanor burning again and went cold. No. Not like that. Margaret didn’t know her but if she knew what Eleanor had been like, perhaps she would understand his confused grief. Perhaps she could help him understand it.

‘She was kind to me,’ Henry said. ‘I know it sounds bizarre but she was and sometimes I think – what if it was a mistake? What if she didn’t fall into evil at all?

‘You are saying she was innocent?’

Henry shook his head quickly. No. She had to be guilty. She had to be. She had been put on trial, the bishops had declared her guilty, annulled her marriage and made her do penance. She had been guilty, she _was_ guilty. He saw it as if it were a brand on her forehead. The letters raised and blisteringly red. GUILTY. She had to be. It would not be right for her to be so harshly punished if she had been innocent. God, surely, would not allow that. God could not be that cruel.

‘Henry,’ Margaret said, voice sharp.

He turned to face her. His head swam, the room was too big and she was too beautiful, her dark hair peeping beneath her veils and her bright eyes fixed on him.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

*

Margaret went to the gardens without him and he laid down on his bed, stared up at the shadowed ceiling. He couldn’t stop thinking about Eleanor. How kind she had been, how she had seemed like his friend. But she had consorted with witches and even, it was said, fornicated with the devil. He wondered what it was like – it would’ve hurt, he thought, and then changed his mind. The devil would like them all to feel pleasure in their most grievous sins so they would repeat them.

But that was only a story. Foul gossip he had overheard from servants. Suffolk had never mentioned it and the cardinal had said, _that is gossip unworthy of your ears._ And, even if Gloucester was bound to her by a spell, she had loved him too much to fornicate with any man or demon that wasn’t him.

Maybe, he thought, it had been grief that wore her down and stole her life. They said King Richard II died of cursed melancholy so surely it was possible. A shattered heart could keep on beating but grow weaker and weaker until it stopped. She had loved Gloucester and used him and Gloucester was dead, gone well beyond her reach whatever spells and potions she could use. But it was sad, wasn’t it, that she loved him so much and had lost him?

He rolled over, pressed his face against the pillow and felt the shapes of feathers beneath his cheeks. Perhaps she had smothered herself. Perhaps someone else had smothered her, took pity on her and sent her to hell.

No. She should not burn.

*

After supper, Margaret came with him to his room and they copulated on the bed. He promised himself that he would confess the sin in the morning – which sometimes he didn’t, because it was _embarrassing_ – and then copulated with her again. It felt good, her arms around him, his flesh in her flesh, her breasts brushing against his chest. He knew it was a sin and therefore the comfort it gave him was false but he felt less alone.

It didn’t last. He laid on his side, curled around himself and wished it was not night so his confessor was awake to hear his confession. He took his paternoster beads from beneath the pillow and held them between his fingers. He should pray for forgiveness for his sins and for his family and their souls. But his fingers were still. Should he pray for Eleanor now too?

She had been part of his family once though she had earned that relationship through evil and the bishops had rendered it void. But surely her soul was in desperate need of prayers and intercession and there was no one but Henry who would think to pray for her. Gloucester would have but Gloucester was five years dead.

Gloucester would’ve wanted her brought back and laid in his own tomb with him. He loved her that much. Too much.

Margaret was awake beside him still. He could hear it in her breath, not quite deep enough to be sleep. He wanted to see her face but he knew if he turned over he would see her shift still crumpled from their coupling and he would want to hold her again.

‘Do you think,’ Henry said, without moving, ‘that we could have her buried with Gloucester?’

Her answer felt like scorn. As if she was speaking to him like he should know the answer already. But Gloucester and Eleanor had loved each other so much – though perhaps that was a delusion brought on by her witch’s spells and potions.

‘Anyway, they already buried her, didn’t they?’ Margaret said.

He closed his eyes, tried to remember what the clerk had said. _Beauchamp had her buried._ He thought of her body pushed into the cold ground, soil shovelled in on top of her, no coffin or shroud to soften the blows. Dirt filling her nose and mouth. He held his paternoster beads to his mouth and began to pray. _Our father, who art in heaven._

He wondered what she had felt when she died. If it had hurt or frightening or a relief. A great joy – freedom from the earthly coil. Or dread filling her bowels, knowing that hellfire awaited.

*

The sky was covered in cloud, the plants were wilted. It was too hot. Sweat gathered beneath his armpits and across the back of his neck. The flies were awful. Margaret trailed behind him and he could feel her frustration. He wanted to be better. He wanted to be good. He wanted to know all the answers and understand all so he could be filled with pity and mercy in equal measure.

Eleanor. He looked for her and saw her sitting on the edge of the fountain. Like in his dream, she wore a crown of forget-me-nots on her head and her hands were full of roses. He stared at her, eyes growing wet.

Margaret took his arm and led him away. He stopped and picked a pale rose, the petals beginning to droop in the heat. Eleanor had always loved roses. They filled her gardens and were the base of all her perfumes. He didn’t think he could ever smell their scent without remembering her.

He looked for Eleanor again, saw her lying beneath the pale roses, the thorned branches casting black shadows across her face. He wanted to go to her, take her hands and pull her to her feet. They would dance in the summer heat as merry as the birds in spring. The rose fell from his hands.

She was dead. He could not forgive her or rescue her – only God could do that. It was time to put her from his mind. But her body didn’t disappear, even when he walked past her and saw blood-red petals laid across her mouth and throat and breast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henry VI's feelings towards Eleanor are unclear. Some evidence suggests that he had been fond of her - he had, during her imprisonment at Kenilworth Castle, sent her presents, including curtains for her bed. However, other evidence suggests that he did believe the accusations and he may have been frightened of her. I am fascinated by the idea of there being some conflict inside him over her guilt - the sense that it's easier for him to accept her guilt than to challenge the idea that there was something corrupt going on in his court. I find it interesting that Eleanor died the year before his mental breakdown and think it's not outside the bounds of possibility that her death could have contributed to his breakdown in some small way.
> 
> "The cardinal" is a reference, of course, to Cardinal Henry Beaufort. If his "God's will" response to Henry's question about why Eleanor couldn't have children seems too generous given his conflict with Gloucester, I reasoned it was plausible that he would hesitate to criticise Eleanor for something his own mother had done (there are fairly strong similarities between Katherine Swynford and Eleanor Cobham as women who both were the mistress of a royal duke married to a vulnerable but politically significant foreign woman and who both later married their dukes in what was almost certainly a love match).
> 
> The idea that Eleanor was disruptive and suicidal after Gloucester's death comes from folklore that sprung up around her time at Peel Castle, most notably found in George Waldron's 1731 _A Description of the Isle of Man_. There is no contemporary evidence for it but I felt it was plausible she may have been suicidal given she was at Peel Castle when Gloucester died and his death probably represented the end of any hope she had of being pardoned and allowed to go free.


End file.
